The present invention relates to fastening or anchoring devices for holding an object on a surface in a removable and secure manner, for example such as a land-based vehicle seat on the floor or floorpan of this vehicle.
In many technical fields it is necessary to join together two objects or parts of an object so as to keep them assembled in a failproof manner.
Such is the case for example in the aeronautical sector for jettisonable containers. Canadian patent No. 1,181,112 describes a programmed delayed-opening expanding ball-type locking pin fastening device.
Such is also the case for example in the automotive sector for so-called "single-volume people-carrier" land-based motor vehicles which derive both from the saloon-type vehicle known as an estate car and from the utility vehicle known as a small van. Given the universal nature of the use envisaged for these vehicles, it is necessary to equip them with seats at least some of which are removable and capable of adopting multiple and varied, preferably predetermined, positions, that is to say capable of adopting a certain number of discrete positions, each position being clearly defined.
Seats of this type must, for example, so that they can be occupied, be capable of opening out completely into a bunk, a relaxing armchair, or a lounger, into a normal so-called driving or travelling seat, or of opening out partially into panels. They must also be capable of retracting so as to fold partially or fold up completely in a compact and relatively unbulky manner with a view to retracting them into the vehicle or removing them therefrom; they cannot then be occupied. French Patent Nos. 2,689,739 and 2,705,289 describe seats of this type.
For such seats it is therefore necessary to have a device for anchoring and locking them to the floor of the vehicle which is easy to manipulate and which is such that a seat fitted onto the floor can in fact be occupied only when the device is not only anchored and locked but also actually disabled so that this locking cannot come undone.
Indeed, for reasons of safety, especially in the event of violent impacts with a high longitudinal component, referenced with respect to the vehicle, the seat must not be allowed to give way under its occupant, or even be carried along by the latter in the event that the seat belt with which the seat is equipped no longer is anchored directly to two or three points on the structure or bodyshell of the vehicle, but in contrast when this seat belt forms part of the seat and is somewhat "on board" the latter, the various anchoring points of the seat belt being established directly on the seat itself. It will be understood that the forces to be absorbed and/or transmitted in the event of an impact are localized essentially in the area of the underframe of the seat and of the floor of the vehicle, as well as where they join.
All the difficulties that there are in satisfying all these requirements, which are often contradictory, particularly when it is recalled that such a device has to be mass-produced at minimum cost in a particularly reliable manner, will thus be grasped.